


The Great Stone Dragon

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Mulan (1998)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dragons, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 15:13:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20530097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Mulan disappears in the capital before Shang can speak with her. So he rides off to find her again, seeking out the Fa household. But not all is as it seems.





	The Great Stone Dragon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VagabondDawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VagabondDawn/gifts).

The Emperor tells Shang, “You don’t find a girl like that every dynasty.”

Shang knows he’s right. So he runs after her through the crowd. But although the crowd clears for him, and everyone is willing to help, he can’t find Fa Mulan anywhere. She’s disappeared into the wind. So eager to go home that she cannot wait a single minute to hear what Shang might have to say to her, after all they’ve been through.

Ling and Yao and Chien Po all help him search for her, but it seems she’s already gone from the city. So they clap him on the back and wish him luck in his journey. Of course it is obvious to everyone that he will want to go riding after her and hunt her down. At least they’re generous enough not to smirk about it, but Shang still feels embarrassingly obvious.

Still, they’re not wrong, and neither is the Emperor. So Shang fetches some supplies, says his farewells, saddles up, and rides on out.

* * *

It is not unlike Mulan to disappear.

Back when she was Ping, she often would be missing at various training exercises, or at odd hours of the day. The lack of discipline should have been enough to throw her out of the army, but she always had an excuse when she got back, and Shang always ended up being the one who felt guilty instead—as if by not keeping an eye on her every moment of the day, he failed to keep Ping willed into existence. As if when Ping wasn’t around, it was somehow Shang’s fault.

Ping, of course, never espoused this point of view, but made her excuses and apologized with a deep bow. And somehow Shang always forgave her.

It was irrational, and it was ridiculous, and it eventually culminated in Shang deciding he really did have to crack down on this misbehavior of hers and telling her she should leave the army and go home. She looked shocked. “Commander, you can’t send me home!”

“I must. You’re not suited for a life of war, Ping. It’s not even an insult,” he added when Ping looked distressed. “It is good for there to be men more suited for a time of peace, for caring for their family and those around them. But the army is not a place for such men.”

He would have let it go at that, a bittersweet parting, if not for Ping’s stubbornness—Mulan’s stubbornness, really—her urge to prove that the army was exactly where she belonged. The next day he’d found her perched on top of the post he used to test the soldiers’ climbing abilities, smiling down triumphantly at the camp. She slid down afterwards as smooth as silk, landing light as a feather. It was an odd thing about Ping, that sometimes she would be so graceful it was almost otherworldly, other times so awkward she seemed a stranger in her own body.

“How did you do it?” he asked her quietly.

She shrugged. “I needed to prove myself to you in order to stay with the army. I need to stay in the army to protect my family, and the honor of Fa Zhou. So it was possible to me.”

It was not an answer, but it somehow sufficed. Ping, it seemed, had a will stronger than anything. Stronger than Shang’s will, for certain, but also stronger than fate, stronger than her own body, stronger than even the force of the war. If she was determined to endure, she would endure.

It was the same when he found out at last that she was a woman. Any other man—woman—person would surely have been horrified to have been discovered in such deception, and surely would have begged Shang for mercy. Made their excuses, pleaded just for their lives. But Mulan accepted the possibility of death with stoicism. All she said to Shang was, “Please, Commander. You will regret this if you do it.”

When Shang spared her, she looked at him as if she were proud of him. It hurt. It hurt more when the quiet pride turned into panic when he said she was to be left behind.

“Commander!”

He turned away. He’d spared her life; he owed her no more than that. He could grant her no more than that.

“Commander, you can’t leave me here! You must let me come with you!”

He couldn’t. It would be making himself an accomplice to what amounted to treason. He couldn’t.

“Please. Let me come. I will protect you,” she said. Her voice carried even as he walked further and further away. Why was the woman so loud? “I’ve always protected you, haven’t I?”

She’d saved his life once, today; perhaps warmed his spirit many times before. But now he was protecting her, really. He couldn’t bring her to the capital to present her crime to the Emperor.

(And the Huns were dead now. What, exactly, did she think she’d be protecting him from? It was a ridiculous thing to say, but it was hard not to stop and listen to her. Though he was the Commander, she had a sort of command in the way she spoke sometimes.)

* * *

She was right, of course.

Right that he shouldn’t have left her behind. That he and the army and the whole Empire would need her in the end. They were lucky she showed up when she did.

Shang thinks to himself that it wouldn’t have mattered if Shan Yu hadn’t survived, if the Huns really had all been dead. He would have regretted leaving Fa Mulan behind eventually. She would have haunted him as surely alive and absent as dead. Even now, when they left on good terms, as allies, her absence haunts him already. Sometime in their brief acquaintance, while he wasn’t paying too much attention, she became essential to him, and now that she is gone, he dreams of her waking and sleeping.

At least he knows where to find her. The location of the Fa family’s house is in the army’s records. Actually, he doesn’t even need to check. He looked her records over a few times when they were still in training, trying to figure out why exactly something felt off about her. He never figured it out, though. (And even now, knowing she was hiding her gender, he still feels like he’s missing something.)

He reaches the village where the Fa family lives within a few days—it is not so very far. He asks around for the exact address. Then he spends the night in an inn, bracing himself to see her at last. He wants to see her so badly, but he doesn’t feel entirely ready. He doesn’t know what he’ll say to her, or to her family. He has to please her family, after all. She cares about them so very much.

The next day he decides he’ll just have to go for it and do his best. He goes to the house and knocks on the gate, and when he is admitted and presented to an older man and woman, he says to them, after the proper greetings, “I’m here to see your daughter.”

They exchange glances.

Fa Zhou is the one who says, “Pardon me, Commander, but you must be mistaken. We don’t have any daughter.”

Shang is taken somewhat aback. Considering what motive Fa Zhou could have to lie to him, he says, “You need not worry Mulan will face any consequences for her actions. Impersonating a man to join the army is a serious crime, but she showed great heroism in battle. The Emperor has not only pardoned but honored her. I myself am not here as an officer, but only as a friend. Please, there’s no need to hide her from me.”

But Fa Zhou and Fa Li only continue to stare at him, looking more confused than concerned. It is the grandmother who speaks up at last, saying, “Mulan, you say?”

“Yes, Mulan,” Shang says. “Your granddaughter. She joined the army a couple months ago, and fought as a man. Surely she has returned to you by now?”

The grandmother laughs disbelievingly. “Mulan… I think you will have to tell us the whole story, young man. There really is no daughter named Mulan in the Fa household, but…” She trails off and then raises her eyebrows significantly.

Shang is still bewildered, but he tells Grandmother Fa the story from beginning to end, as best he can: starting with how he met Fa Ping and ending with Fa Mulan leaving him behind in the capital. Zhou and Li show no signs of enlightenment, but Grandmother Fa nods wisely. When the story is over, she slowly stands up and says, “Come for a walk with me, Commander. There is something I should show you.”

She takes him for a walk through the gardens, telling him about the history of the house and the history of the family. They end up near a large statue of a stone dragon, beautifully carved, fierce and noble. Grandmother Fa touches the statue reverently. “The Great Stone Dragon has been with this family as long as we have records.”

Shang bows to it politely.

“Yes, it has always protected us… but a couple months ago, the statue vanished. Disappeared. We could not understand it—it is far too large for a thief to steal it, nor would it have value to anyone but us. And there was not so much as a crumbled pebble left on the stand. Then, a week ago, it reappeared. A mystery we could not solve.”

“How strange,” Shang says. His brow furrows.

Grandmother Fa chuckles. “It has a name, do you see? Carved at the bottom.”

Shang looks and sees the name then: Fa Mulan.

* * *

The Fa family remains collectively baffled, but they all accept Grandmother Fa’s explanation eventually, with only a little skepticism. The Great Stone Dragon has protected their family for some time, after all. They ask Shang for more details about Mulan, and listen quietly. Fa Zhou says that he wishes they could have seen Mulan in the flesh as well. He says Shang is lucky; Shang already knows.

But although he is awed at the revelation that Mulan was more than what she seemed, and in ways he never guessed, he can’t help but feel melancholy. He came here to find Mulan, and now he’s found her, but… although he never figured out just what he wanted to do with her, he’s pretty sure whatever it was won’t work with a stone statue.

But the Fa family invites him to stay the night or possibly a couple days, and he agrees to it. They are still Mulan’s family, after all, and he still wants to know them better. After dinner, he slips out to the garden to talk to the statue alone. He bows to it again, and says, “Mulan, I never properly thanked you. The Emperor did, but I never had the chance.”

The statue does not reply.

“So, thank you for protecting me. Though you’re the Fa family’s guardian, not mine, you took good care of my army. It was an honor serving with you. I wish you didn’t have to leave.” He pauses. It feels silly, saying all of this to a statue. “I love you.”

He walks away quickly after that, too embarrassed to stay. If the statue isn’t Mulan, he’s just professed love to an inanimate object. If it is Mulan, he’s just professed love to a woman he still doesn’t fully understand, who he’s sure could never return his feelings—spirits don’t love humans, not that way. Either way, he’s said what he needed to say, gotten his closure. And it’s done with now. The Emperor was right: a woman like that does not appear every dynasty. Nor, it seems, does she stick around for very long.

In his head, he hears the echoing sound of Mulan’s voice calling after him: “_Let me come with you!”_ If he could go back to that moment, he would pull her out of the snow and tell her to never leave his side again.

* * *

He’s sleeping in the Fa family’s guest room when he hears the panel door out to the garden slide open. He’s a soldier only just dismissed from service—he’s only ever half asleep—so he bolts up immediately, hand searching for a sword that he left in another room. Then he sees her, framed in moonlight. Mulan.

“I’m sorry to wake you up. It seemed like you had a hard trip getting here.” No matter what kind of creature she might be, her voice is still human. She even sounds a little sheepish. “Oh, and sorry I didn’t transform earlier, when you came to talk. I can’t do it when humans are watching me.” She scratches the back of her neck. “So… but I thought I’d come and talk with you, if you don’t mind.”

He can only nod. She kneels beside his bed. She’s not wearing the clothes of a soldier anymore, nor the blue robes he saw her in last, but a set of pink and navy robes that look a little like what Fa Li was wearing earlier. Suited to the household.

“I talked to Grandmother Fa,” she says. “I thought I’d ask her advice. She’s very wise. Often I think older humans grow wiser than me, even though I knew her when she was a baby.” She laughs awkwardly. “I have protected the Fa family for a long time, Commander. Centuries, even. I can barely remember who I was before.”

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me.”

“I have some stories you might like. Though I think Yao and Ling and Chien Po would like them even more. Perhaps I’ll tell them eventually. But that doesn’t matter right now.” She hesitates. “Commander, you said you wished I wouldn’t leave you.”

“Of course.” Shang swallows. “You were an excellent soldier, for all the trouble you caused me.”

And he loves her, but if she was listening, she already knows that. That doesn't change that she is a dragon spirit and he is a human, and surely it is impossible for them to be together.

But here she is beside him, looking at him warily, and he cannot help but feel a stirring of hope.

Mulan says, “I have stayed with the Fa family these many years. But the country is at peace now, and perhaps… I thought I could leave here for a while. With you. Grandmother Fa said they wouldn’t mind. And there would still be the ancestors to keep watch, and Mushu.”

“…who’s Mushu?”

Mulan laughs. “Another dragon. He’s very small, but he’s a good protector. Eager to prove himself, too.”

“So there are more dragons, here?”

“The spirit world is everywhere, Commander. I can introduce you to some people sometime that would astonish you. But… Shang, if I were to leave this place and come with you instead, and be your protector, would that be okay?”

“If you were to come with me,” Shang says, “I would count myself lucky to have you.”

A dragon’s smile should be toothy and frightening, but when Mulan smiles, Shang feels the glory of sunshine even in the middle of the night.


End file.
